The Secrets of Ghosts Read Online Free

wasn’t the heartless suit Gwen had always described him as.
    ‘We’re not a chain,’ Patrick was saying. ‘We can’t take this kind of publicity, and in this financial climate...’ He seemed under the impression that the detective was a journalist. ‘I don’t want a circus.’
    ‘There is no reason for alarm, sir,’ the detective said. He started to say something about it looking ‘very routine’ but they moved away as they were speaking and Katie didn’t catch it properly.
    ‘Miss Harper.’ The police lady opposite was leaning forward, her notebook balanced on one knee. ‘Can I ask you again to think if you saw the deceased argue with anybody this evening?’
    Katie snapped back to the conversation. ‘Wasn’t it a heart attack or something? Why are you asking that?’
    ‘We don’t know the cause of death at this time and we need to get as complete a picture as possible of Mr Cole’s last few hours.’
    Those words — ‘last few hours’ — flipped a switch inside Katie and, at once, she felt incredibly sad. That man, Oliver Cole, ate his salmon starter and drank the over-priced fizzy wine and chatted to people with no idea that he was enjoying the very last few hours of his existence. She reached into her shirt and touched her necklace as another thought hit her: with the Harper family intuition, would she be as clueless? Iris certainly seemed very prepared for her passing: she’d sorted out her journals, left notes for Gwen... But was that better? Preferable? How did it feel when you knew exactly how many more seconds there were to go on the clock? Suddenly, Katie really wanted to get out of the overly warm living room. She wanted to go back to her flat and sleep for a day. Maybe two. She focused on the policewoman, who was looking a bit irritated. ‘That’s everything I can tell you. It’s time to wrap this up.’
    The woman’s eyes slid over Katie’s face as if searching for purchase. Then she said: ‘It’s probably about time to wrap this up. If you think of anything else, anything at all—’ She held out a business card.
    ‘I’ll call you,’ Katie said, getting up. She walked swiftly out of the room before the policewoman regained her senses and went to the staff room to collect her denim jacket and bag. Katie felt shaky. For a horrible moment she’d thought the policewoman had been going to ignore her suggestion. Light distraction or suggestion was one of the basic skills of the Harper women, as natural and easy as telling a white lie or reading cards to help a friend make a decision. It was one of the first hints that she was a Harper, turning up when she was just fourteen, and as much a part of her as the colour of her hair. What if each skill were stripped away until there was nothing left? What if, rather than coming into her true power, she was experiencing the disintegration of the abilities she already had?
    The staff entrance was behind the kitchen so she said goodbye to Jo on her way through.
    ‘You sure you’re all right?’ Jo frowned at her, her pixie-cropped hair sticking up at odd angles where she’d had her hat pinned all evening. ‘Here.’ Jo disappeared inside her walk-in fridge and returned with half a cheesecake on a cling-filmed plate.
    ‘Thank you.’ Katie was touched by Jo’s kindness and it made her want to cry. She got out of the kitchen before Jo could see her eyes filling up, but it was a close-run thing.
    The hot weather was holding and the night air was freakishly warm, even though it was past eleven o’clock. The curtains in the hotel were drawn and blocks of red-tinged light hit the gravel that circled the house, but the driveway was a pitch-black tunnel. She’d told Patrick last year that he needed to put more of the solar ground lights along it but he clearly hadn’t been listening. As soon as she stepped away from the lights of the main building the shape of the low garden walls and clipped hedges took on a grey and menacing appearance,